Set in Stone, page 27
part #10 of Robert Goddard Series
My weary mind turned to you, to the memories it held of our shared past. The life we’d had together seemed so joyously simple, set against everything that had followed. Why couldn’t it just have continued? Why couldn’t the hell I’d been through since your death be the dream, and the fantasy of seeing you again the reality?
For a moment, maybe for several while I lay there, I almost believed it could. When the rumble of the approaching train dragged me out of my reverie, I thought I was waking from a doze in the armchair at Stanacombe, hearing your car drive in off the lane. Then the brazen light and bludgeoning noise were all around me. I lost you again, as I had so many times, sensed you slipping away from me. You were gone. And a chunk of me was gone with you. The rest—the remainder, the leftover man—lurched up from the bench and made for the opening doors of the train.
I cleaned myself up as best I could at King’s Cross, had a breakfast of sorts on the train and probably looked relatively normal by the time I reached Peterborough. I booked into a hotel halfway between the station and the cathedral, had a bath and a second breakfast, then slept for four bizarrely untroubled hours. By three o’clock I was on my way back to the station, planning to catch the next train to Oakham. And there didn’t seem anything to stop me.
Until a car that was somehow familiar pulled in ahead of me, its hazard lights flashing. I stopped and whirled round, fearing I’d see one of them closing in on me from behind. But there was nobody there. Then I heard a voice calling my name.
“Tony!”
And at once I remembered whose car it was.
“Do you want a lift, Tony? I’m probably going your way.”
Nesta Worthington lived in Oakham, but she had a daughter in Peterborough. She was on her way back home after Sunday lunch. Her presence in the city made good and simple sense, unlike mine.
“I came up by train,” I explained, accurately enough, as we headed west along the A47. “I was just killing time. You know what connections are like on the railways these days—nonexistent.”
“What’s happened to your car?”
“Just wouldn’t start. Dead. But when I heard Matt was on the mend, I decided I couldn’t wait for a garage to give it the once-over.”
“It’s good news about Matt, isn’t it? Lucy phoned me last night. It was obvious a load had been taken off her mind.”
“It’s a load off all our minds.”
“Are you going into the hospital this afternoon?” Already there was an inflexion in her voice, if not of suspicion, then of disquiet. If Leicester was my destination, why had I gone via Peterborough? “I could drive you there.”
“I, er, have to stop off in Oakham first.”
“That wouldn’t be a problem. I could wait. I’d like to see Matt myself.”
“You go ahead. I really—”
“Have no intention of going there?” She glanced sharply round at me. “Lucy asked me if I’d heard from you. Odd, wouldn’t you say? I had the impression she was clutching at straws. I mean, why would I have heard from you when she hadn’t?”
“I can’t imagine.”
Nesta didn’t believe that. I reckoned she’d heard or seen enough to know what had gone on between Lucy and me. That didn’t equip her to understand what was happening now, but she didn’t know that. My behaviour probably looked like a straightforward case of guilt to her.
“I like Matt. And Lucy.”
“So do I.”
“Since you came to stay at Otherways, things haven’t worked out well for them.”
“My fault, do you think?”
“I’m not saying that.”
“But you’re wondering it.”
“Yes. I suppose I am.”
“If only it was so simple.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean, Nesta, is that you don’t know what’s at stake here. And you’re better off not knowing. Better by far.”
The rest of the journey passed in a tense and grudging silence. We headed up past Stamford on the Al, then turned off on the Oakham road and soon caught our first sight of Rutland Water, benign and shimmering in the afternoon sun. It was the warmest and stillest part of the day. Yachts and pleasure craft were out on the lake. Sunday cyclists were thickly bunched on the track around its perimeter. It all looked placid and pretty and oh so permanent.
But, as we started up Barnsdale Hill and I gazed across at the Hambleton peninsula, I remembered James Milner’s dream of just this scene. What couldn’t be and what was were threaded into the past as well as the future.
Suddenly I noticed the circular roof of Otherways, a smudge of honey-brown slate, almost lost from view amidst the dense green patch of surrounding elm and oak. What had Cedric said about Henna Cliff as a place to meet? Ideal, “if you like to be able to see people coming.” The creation of the reservoir had done that to Otherways, had given it a larger outer moat, a perpetual warning of approach. If Oates had bought land lower in the valley, Posnan’s house would no longer stand. But that could never have happened. Wherever high water had been decreed to be, Otherways would have been higher still.
I had Nesta drop me at the market place in Oakham. It wasn’t exactly an amiable parting, but antagonizing her had been a price worth paying to ensure she didn’t know where I was going or why. I phoned for a taxi from the Whipper-in and was in Hambleton twenty minutes later.
I paid off the taxi in the car park of the Finches Arms.
Seeing the pub was open, I bought a beer and sat with it at one of the tables facing the church. I had more than an hour to spare till my, or rather Cedric’s, appointment at Otherways. There was no hurry. There was indeed every reason not to hurry. The less time I spent at Otherways the better. I’d be far more nervous there, and more vulnerable, than I was in the garden of the Finches Arms. I finished my beer and followed it with a whisky. Then I set off.
There was still ample time to reach the house by six o’clock. And I was still reluctant to arrive there. I walked round to the church and went in through the gate, intending, for no particular reason, to take a look at Ann Milner’s grave.
I was most of the way to it along the path when I pulled up sharply. There, kneeling beside her sister’s grave, was Daisy. She had her back turned to me. Her head was level with the top of the stone. That and the greyish tweed coat she was wearing had camouflaged her so effectively that I’d got within a few yards of her without realizing she was there.
I stood where I was, wondering if she’d heard me approaching and, if so, whether she’d turn round. In the churchyard hush my accentuated hearing suddenly caught the slightest of sounds. Daisy was crying. There was a faint sob. I saw the moist track of a tear round her left cheekbone, which was as much of her face as I could see. Then she stretched forward and began dropping long-stemmed cut flowers, one by one, into the vase beneath the headstone. Even I could identify those flowers. They were a strange choice, given how many were growing wild all around us. And yet it wasn’t so strange, since she shared their name.
I had a lot to say to Daisy. I had a lie to nail and an accusation to level. But this wasn’t the time, and her sister’s graveside wasn’t the place. I turned slowly on my heel and retreated down the path.
At the gate I glanced back. There was no sign of her, just as there hadn’t been when I entered. It looked as if I’d come and gone without her being aware of my presence. And that was how I wanted it. For the moment.
The quickest route to Otherways was straight along the lane. I preferred to take the footpath out of the village and across the fields, to the fishermen’s track round the peninsula, then follow that for a while before cutting back across the fields to the house. As I was crossing the last field, before the stile onto the track, I had the momentary impression there was somebody close behind me. But when I spun round…nothing. My narrow escape at the church must have spooked me. Or maybe it was my proximity to Otherways. There wasn’t far to go now. Or long to wait. What there was to know I’d soon know.
I carried on to the stile and paused there in the shade of a tree. I checked my watch and wiped the sweat from my face. It seemed hotter than it had been earlier, as if the sun was strengthening, not weakening, as it should have been at this faltering point of the late afternoon. I’d have gladly smoked a cigarette, but I’d bought none along the way. I was all out of delaying tactics. I clambered over the stile and pressed on along the track.
I’d never approached Otherways by this route before. It made me realize how carefully Posnan must have chosen the site. It stood above its surroundings, yet concealed by them, a topographical chance Posnan had eagerly seized. Time and the maturing of the trees he’d planted had enhanced the effect. The house was there, detectable before it was visible, and seemed always to have been there. But, like the lake, that was an illusion. It was easy, in fact, to imagine that the lake was part of Posnan’s architectural sleight of hand. Had he somehow foreseen its construction? Had he anticipated which contour it would follow?
Impossible, of course, but it was easy to believe as I crossed the last field before the wall marking the boundary of Other ways. I clambered over it and hurried through the trees encircling the garden. The sun was behind me, shafting through the branches above to fall in random splashes of gold on the curving flank of the house. The drawing-room windows lay ahead, and I could see straight into the room. There was the chair where I’d sat waiting for Matt at around this time four evenings before. It was empty now. As was the house. But not for much longer.
As I started across the lawn, I saw a vehicle approaching along the drive. It was a dark-blue Volvo estate. I hesitated, then went on. There was nothing to be gained by caution.
The Volvo drew to a halt in front of the house just as I reached the edge of the drive. The sole occupant of the car was a tubby middle-aged man, with centre-parted greased black hair, dressed in an office suit. He pushed open the door with his foot, heaved himself out in a flash of giant scarlet braces and squinted at me over half-moon horn-rimmed spectacles. I met his gaze and held it as I slowly rounded the bonnet. Then he smiled and spoke.
“Mr Prior about?”
I stopped and frowned at him. “Are you here to meet Mr Hall?”
“No. Mr Prior.”
“And you are?”
“Frank Bissell.” He flourished a business card. “Bissell, Unsworth and Hegg.”
“Who?”
“Bissell, Unsworth and Hegg. Estate agents.” His smile frayed into irritability. “Look, coming here on a Sunday afternoon has caused me no little domestic friction, but Mr Prior insisted it was the only time he could manage, so—”
“You have an appointment with him?”
“Certainly. I’m sorry if I’m a few minutes late, but—”
“No, I’m sorry, Mr Bissell. You obviously haven’t heard. I’m a friend of the family. Mr Prior’s in hospital. He was involved in a car accident.”
“Oh God.” Bissell winced. “Bad?”
“Serious, certainly. He’s going to be out of action for quite a while.”
“Damn.”
“Quite.”
“Sorry. I mean, I’m sorry to hear it. All this”—he gestured vaguely at the house—“will be on the back burner, then.”
“All what?”
“The sale.”
“The sale of the house?”
“Of course.” He looked at me as if I were being deliberately obtuse. “That’s what I came here to discuss with Mr Prior.”
“Yes.” I nodded, yielding to the logic of the discovery. Matt had wanted out of Otherways. And who could blame him? “Of course.”
“Is Mrs Prior about?”
“No.”
“Pity.”
Bissell wouldn’t have thought it was much of a pity, of course, had he realized that Lucy was totally unaware of Matt’s decision to sell, though not, I ruefully admitted to myself, of what had led him to that decision.
“Well, I wish Mr Prior a speedy recovery.”
“So do I.”
“You’ll tell him I called?”
“I’ll tell him.”
“And Mrs Prior? I mean, should she wish to proceed while Mr Prior’s still…hors de combat. Perhaps you could pass on my card.” He handed it to me. “Awfully grateful.”
A thought came to me as I took it. “Did your firm handle the sale to the Priors, Mr Bissell?”
“We did, as a matter of fact.” So, Frank Bissell was probably the man who’d given Cedric your name. He was, in his way, someone with a lot to answer for. “Bit of a surprise, really.”
“What was?”
“Mr Prior’s call. I mean, it’s a tad soon to be moving on. Especially when I had the impression they’d fallen in love with the place.”
“That’s the trouble with love. You can fall out as well as in.”
“Yes.” Bissell eyed me uncertainly. “Well, I’d better get back to the love of my own life. Do excuse me.”
I watched Bissell’s car vanish along the drive, then I took Lucy’s keys from my pocket and crossed the moat. I paused at the foot of the steps leading to the front door of the house and looked at my watch. It was eight minutes to six. I took a deep breath, mounted the steps, slid the mortice into the keyhole and turned it.
But it wouldn’t turn. I strained at it for a second, then realized what was wrong. It wasn’t locked. I’d locked it when Lester and I had left on Thursday night. I could remember him standing next to me as I’d done so, my mind teeming with the contents of James Milner’s confession, while Lester wittered on about the statistical evidence for global warming. Lock it I definitely had.
But it wasn’t locked any more. Which meant that either somebody had been and gone in the meantime, leaving the door on the latch, or somebody had been, but hadn’t gone.
I opened the door with the Yale, stepped into the passage and closed it behind me. The alarm stayed silent. It was operated by the third key on Lucy’s ring, and I’d certainly set it. But it had been turned off- or disabled. It looked intact, but I was no expert. I dropped the keys into my pocket and walked slowly along to the hall.
Nothing stirred. The house always did exclude external noise with astonishing efficiency. I’d wondered if Posnan had incorporated some form of sound-proofing in the design. It wouldn’t have surprised me.
“Hello!” I shouted, determined not to be cowed. My voice echoed up into the conical roof and I stared after it. Nothing moved on the landings. “Is anyone here?”
Several seconds passed. Then I heard three clinking notes, like a spoon being tapped against a glass, as if to quieten an audience in readiness for a speech. The noise seemed to come up from the kitchen. I strode to the stairs and headed down them.
The kitchen door was ajar. I pushed at it with my foot. As it swung open, I saw a man sitting at the table in the centre of the room. In his left hand he was holding a glass tumbler, with what looked like whisky in it; in his right, a gun.
“Strathallan,” I gasped. “You’re…Heraclitus?”
“In a manner of speaking,” he replied. “But in no manner of speaking are you Cedric Milner.” He trained the gun on me. “Where is he?”
THIRTEEN
Strathallan resembled an elderly gent about to perform as guest of honour at a village fête in his pale-blue trousers, navy-blue crested blazer, white shirt and cravat—an urbane and elegant throwback to a bygone era. The gun was old, too. It could easily have been a wartime model. But it looked in excellent repair. And Strathallan’s grip on it was as steady as a rock.
“You’re not going to shoot me,” I said. “Are you?”
“I’m not at all sure. Where is Cedric?”
“He’s dead.”
There wasn’t so much as a flicker of a reaction from him. “How?”
“It’s a longish story. I’ll tell it better if you put that gun down.”
“Did you come alone?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you meant to.”
“There you are, then.”
“But I’m not sure. So, until I am, the gun stays pointed. Start talking, Mr Sheridan. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
I told him the story more or less straight, from the dead end I’d reached in Lisbon, via the chance discovery of James Milner’s confession, to my meeting with Cedric, and the dead end that had also led to. Strathallan listened impassively, not even tempted, it seemed, to interrupt. Nor did he have to call a halt, as he’d said he would. The conclusion of my account was obvious and inevitable. It was where we were. It had always been there.
When I’d finished, he lowered the gun and slipped it into the drawer beneath the table. Then he signalled to the chair opposite him, inviting me to sit down. The tension had eased between us, but nothing in his expression or the tone of his voice had altered. A bottle of Lagavulin and two glasses stood on the table. The empty one must have been intended for Cedric. Strathallan poured some out for me as I sat down, the sunlight from the window to our left sparkling on the crystal of the tumbler.
“I’m sorry to bring you bad news,” I said, swallowing some of the whisky and feeling instantly grateful for its warming effect. It had been a hot afternoon in the world beyond Otherways, but none of that heat seemed to have penetrated the walls of the house. “If you think it is bad news, that is.”
“Cedric was a fool to come back,” said Strathallan, a hint of feeling seeping into his voice at last. “He knew the risks he was running.”
“But you came here to meet him.”
“I did.”
“So you must have backed him to get this far.”
“Not really. But he had a chance. I had to do him the favour of assuming that chance would be enough.”
“Why?”
“Because, in the timeworn phrase, it really was the least I owed him.” He sighed. “You asked me if I was sorry to hear of his death. The answer is that I should be relieved. In my official capacity, I should toast the solution of a problem and the neutralization of a threat.”
